And we have square poop

Wombats are famous for something truly unique in the animal kingdom: they produce cube-shaped poop. For years, this quirky fact puzzled scientists how could an animal’s droppings be perfectly squared? Recent research has finally cracked the mystery.

By carefully studying wombat intestines, researchers found that different sections of their gut have varying stiffness and elasticity. These differences cause the intestines to contract unevenly during digestion, slowly molding the feces into distinct six-sided cubes. Unlike most animals whose intestines squeeze in smooth, uniform waves, wombats have specialized regions that contract at different speeds, creating those sharp edges over time.

To back up their findings, the team even developed a mathematical model simulating these intestinal movements and how they produce the cubes. But why this unusual shape? Wombats use their droppings to mark territory by placing them on rocks and logs, and cube-shaped poop won’t roll away like round pellets would.

Beyond just a fascinating natural oddity, this discovery might even inspire new engineering techniques for shaping materials more precisely in the future.